Beth Ann paused, frowning at her notes.
“What’s wrong?”
“I may have left out a bleep. These Mainers are insanely fond of expletives.”
“I’ll insert it mentally. So what happened next?”
“‘Miss Manners screams at Mr. Clean that if he doesn’t shut Godzilla the bleep up, she’ll do it herself, to which Mr. Clean asks what the bleep she wants him to do, to which Miss Manners answers, “Bleep her!” Godzilla, who looks happy to have stirred the pot, doesn’t bat an eyelash and scoffs that Mr. Clean doesn’t have the guts to bleep her.’”
I regarded Beth Ann skeptically. “Reptiles have eyelashes?”
“Literary license.” She continued breathlessly. “‘From the depths of the crowd, an eerie voice shouts out that he’ll bleep her. “So will I!” shouts another. “She’s a pimple on the expletive of the world.” Mr. Greenjeans, dressed in an attractive Bar Harbor, Maine jacket, saunters over to Godzilla and tells her that he’ll do the honors, because he’s been wanting to bleep her for fifty years.’”
“Mr. Greenjeans is Pete Finnegan!” I blurted out, wondering if he was on a deranged mission to knock off every woman who didn’t see eye to eye with him. Uff-da. Had whacking Charlotte unleashed his appetite for killing?
“I’ll make a note,” said Beth Ann, looking a little exasperated by the interruption. She inhaled an excited breath. “‘Godzilla gets twitchy. The Mainers close in on her. She fends them off with an evil growl, scattering their ranks, then makes an end run around them and vanishes into the crowd. “So what are we supposed to do now that Miss Manners has ruined our evening?” gripes Mr. Bulky. “Have you noticed how she ruins everything?” Mr. Clean suggests Bulky eat bleep. “Don’t blame my wife for ruining your bleeping life. You did that yourself. You and Little Lotta!” Everyone who isn’t yelling at each other appears discomfited by the exchange.’”
Discomfited? Real people actually said “discomfited”?
“‘Little Lotta swears she has a bleeping glandular problem and refers to Mr. Clean as a bleeping expletive. Miss Manners laughs demonically and insists that Lotta would eat a rock if it was covered in buttercream frosting. Mr. Clean doubles his fist. “Let’s settle this once and for all, Bulky. Just you and me. No holds barred. A fight to the finish. I’m going to ring your clock so bad, you won’t know—” Mr. Greenjeans suddenly rages that no one cares what the bleep they do anymore. He tells them they’re bleeping irrelevant and they better get over their bleeping selves because the world didn’t revolve around them anymore.”’
Gee. Pete Finnegan was getting absolutely verbose.
“‘Someone from the crowd yells that Greenjeans is right. “You bleeping people are has-beens!” Someone else shouts that they should grow up. Hissing ensues, followed by boos. “Let’s get out of here!” suggests a woman with a squeaky voice. “We’ll only encourage their bad behavior if we stand here watching them. Why should we make them feel important? I say, ignore them! Ignore them like they always ignored us!’”
“A mini revolution!” I marveled. Or a coup d’etat. Whichever one featured the ruling elite taking it on the chin for being such snots all their lives.
“‘The crowd of onlookers scatter like billiard balls in a desert wind.’”
What?
“‘Bulky, Lotta, Mr. Clean, and Miss Manners are left standing by themselves, looking shocked and insignificant. They’ve just witnessed a changing of the guard, and they obviously don’t like it. They look lost and abandoned, dazed and confused. They seem unable to cope with the fact that they’ve become nobodies. Rather than pound each other into oblivion, Bulky and Mr. Clean take their wives’ arms and stumble off in opposite directions. They look depressed enough to want to jump into the nearest canal, which looms a few feet behind me, a seething cesspool of inky blackness.”’
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you think Jackie will appreciate my descriptions? I should probably make my notes really cut and dry, but I thought a published author might enjoy my literary efforts. Maybe it’ll make up for the fact that I lost everyone.”
I smiled stiffly. “I’m sure your prose will stun her. So, were you able to tail anyone after the group broke up?”
She shook her head. “I tried following Mr. Bulky and Lotta for a while, but I got swallowed up by the crowd outside some erotic nightclub and lost them. I don’t know how all those Mainers disappeared so completely in such a short time, but they sure left me in the dust.”
“Maybe they were anxious to get back to the hotel.” I glanced beyond her, eying the red lanterns and floor-to-ceiling windows where women were posing in skimpy satin underwear while texting on hot pink cellphones. “A little of this place goes a long way.”
She flipped her notebook shut. “I might as well call it a night and head back, too. Doesn’t look as if there’s going to be any more action here tonight. You want to walk back with me?”
“I’d love to, but two of my own people are missing, so I need to track them down.”
She whistled softly. “Good luck with that. Anything I can do to help?”
“Thanks anyway, but you don’t know what they look like, so there’s not much you can do.”
“Watch yourself, then,” she cautioned. “You’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.” With a sigh of resignation, she squared her shoulders and plunged back into the mayhem, leaving me alone to decide where I should venture next—The Erotic Cellar or the Video Sexshop? Honestly, if the Dicks weren’t so endearing in their own annoying way, I’d want to kill them.
“Je-sus, yes! Porn-o, no!” The demonstrators on the bridge began a rhythmic chant. “Je-sus, yes! Porn-o, no!” Their voices grew louder as they hypered each other into a frenzy, thrusting their signs into the air like peasants brandishing pitchforks and torches. “JE-SUS, YES! PORN-O, NO!” And in the middle of it all stood Mike McManus, eyes slatted and mouth tight, scanning the crowd like a human surveillance camera.
“Mike!” I waved my arm over my head and shouted his name again, but realizing there was no way he was going to hear me, I pushed my way onto the bridge and made a beeline for him before he could pull a disappearing act.
“Gotcha!” I grabbed the sleeve of his jacket.
Startled, he jerked his head around and stared at me blankly before recognition crept into his eyes. “Emily. Jeez, I thought you were some loony.”
“Sorry!” I cupped my hand around my mouth and spoke close to his ear. “I called out your name as loud as I could, but I got drowned out by the competition. I’m surprised the protesters haven’t fixed you up with a sign yet.”
“I could use a sign! Something that says, ‘Mary Lou, Where are You?’”
“How long since you’ve seen her?”
He checked his watch. “About an hour. I was leading her and Laura through the crowd but got a little too far ahead. When I turned around, they were both gone. It was the damnedest thing. They literally vanished into thin air.”
“There’s a lot of that going around tonight. At least Mary Lou’s not alone. She and Laura are pretty cool customers. They’re probably making their way back to the hotel even as we speak.”
“I dunno.” He passed a glance over the crowd again, his face etched with doubt. “There are some serious nut-jobs walking around out there. Gives me the willies to think Mary Lou might be walking around with them. Coming down here was a bad idea. A really bad idea. Wait’ll I get my hands on that damn Dietger. He’s probably laughing all the way to the bank.”